The interview between the Caudillo and the Führer took place on 23 October 1940 at Hendaye (on the Spanish–French border), taking advantage of a visit by Hitler to the south of France for a meeting with Marshal Pétain (on 24 October). However, in the interval between the conversations in Berlin and the interview in Hendaye, the course of the war reaffirmed both sides in their positions and reduced the already narrow margin for agreement.
Franco’s enthusiasm for the war began to fade for two reasons: the British victory over the Luftwaffe (which ruled out a collapse of the British resistance and led to the cancellation of the planned invasion of Britain on 12 October) and the determination of the Royal Navy to maintain its hegemony against Italy in the Mediterranean (which convinced him that an occupation of the Suez Canal was an essential precondition before any attack on Gibraltar). Furthermore, the Spanish general staff, with the support of the monarchists and the Church hierarchy, was increasingly opposed to the interventionist policy of the Falange for good reasons: Spain’s extreme vulnerability, the famine in the country (the winter of 1940/1 was very harsh) and the dependence on Anglo-American food and fuel supplies. In these conditions, in Franco’s opinion, the implicit risks made the complete fulfilment of all his demands essential before Spain would join the Axis.
As for Hitler, he was finding it more and more difficult to incorporate Francoist demands into his overall strategy. A few days after receiving Serrano Suñer, the Führer had a meeting in Berlin with Count Ciano, Italian foreign minister, and confessed to him that Spanish belligerency ‘would cost more than it is worth’. Ciano was also of the opinion that the Spanish ‘have been asking for a lot and giving nothing in return’. Moreover, a crucial new event had taken place when on 25 September 1940 the French colonial army, remaining faithful to the Vichy government, had beaten back an attack on Dakar by the forces of General De Gaulle with British support. Its leaders had guaranteed the neutrality of its army provided Germany respected the integrity of the French North African empire. Faced with these events, Hitler and Mussolini met at the Brenner on 4 October to discuss their response to Franco’s demands in Morocco. Hitler emphasized that the intervention of Spain ‘was of strategic importance only in connection with the conquest of Gibraltar; her military help was absolutely nil’. However, the acceptance of Spanish demands would provoke two adverse phenomena for the Axis: ‘firstly, English occupation of the Spanish bases in the Canaries, and secondly, the adhesion of [French] North Africa to the Gaullist movement’. As a result, Hitler considered that, ‘at all events, it would be more favourable for Germany if the French remained in Morocco and defended it against the English.’ Mussolini expressed his agreement and his desire to reach a compromise between the French hopes and the Spanish wishes.94
Under these conditions, during the interview in Hendaye on 23 October 1940, the possibility of a Hispano-German agreement had been considerably reduced.95 Franco refused to commit himself to a definite date for entering the war, as Hitler requested, unless the colonial Spanish claims were accepted. However, the Führer neither wished to nor was able to agree to them. Looking towards his next meeting with Pétain, Hitler had concluded that the priority was to keep Vichy France on his side to guarantee the benevolent neutrality of the French North African empire and even its anti-British belligerency, as had been demonstrated in Dakar. As a result, he refused to dismember the French territories, as such an act would push the authorities there into the arms of De Gaulle and Britain. He could not risk losing the advantages of French collaboration in the interests of the costly and doubtful belligerency of a country such as Spain, that was hungry, defenceless and half-destroyed. Despite the absence of agreement, in order to secure rights over the distribution of the postwar booty, Franco agreed to sign a ‘secret protocol’ in Hendaye which prescribed Spain’s accession to the German–Italian–Japanese Tripartite Pact and obliged it to ‘intervene in the present war of the Axis Powers against England after they have provided it with the military support necessary for its preparedness’, at a time to be set by common agreement of the three powers. In this way, Spain became an as-yet non-belligerent associate of the Axis. Mussolini accurately described the significance of the above document in his meeting with Hitler on 28 October: ‘That Protocol represents the secret accession of Spain to the Tripartite Pact.’96
The subsequent course of the war, with Italian defeats in Greece and North Africa, convinced Franco that this was going to be a prolonged and exhausting conflict. As a result, he continued to postpone sine die Spanish belligerency, in spite of German demands that he fulfil the terms of the protocol and fix a date for the start of the joint attack on Gibraltar. At the end of 1940 these demands were particularly intense to ensure Spanish collaboration in ‘Operation Felix’ (a German attack on Gibraltar, planned for 10 January 1941). Canaris had a meeting with Franco on 7 December to obtain his final approval. However, the Caudillo refused because Spain ‘was not prepared for this. The difficulties in the way were not so much military as economic; food and all other necessities were lacking.’ According to Franco, military weakness was so great that ‘Spain would lose the Canary Islands and her overseas possessions upon entry into the war’. He therefore concluded that ‘Spain could enter the war only when England was about to collapse.’97
From then on, Franco’s regime maintained its alignment with the Axis without passing, due to simple incapacity, the threshold of war. Anti-British campaigns continued in the press; the covert help to German and Italian secret services was maintained; logistics support continued to be given to the navy and air force of both countries; the export of products useful to the Axis war effort was encouraged, including tungsten, iron ore and pyrites.
The pinnacle of Spanish identification with the Axis occurred after 22 June 1941, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the shift of the war to the east. Franco congratulated the Nazi government on its initiative and offered as a ‘gesture of solidarity’ the dispatch of Spanish volunteers to fight alongside the German army against communism. On 2 July, Serrano Suñer defined the position adopted by Franco as ‘the most resolute moral belligerency at the side of our friends’. Immediately, under the slogan ‘Russia is responsible for our civil war’, the recruitment of volunteers began. On 14 July 1941 the first contingent of the so-called Blue Division (because of the colour of the Falangist uniform) set off for the Russian front, consisting of 18,694 men under professional military commanders. Until the final withdrawal (in February 1944), a total of 47,000 Spaniards fought with the German army in Russia (approximately 10 per cent of whom lost their lives).98
The political intention of the dispatch of the Blue Division was clear. With the contribution of Spanish blood to the war effort, the Axis would have to recognize future territorial claims. In the words of Serrano Suñer: ‘Their sacrifice would give us a title of legitimacy to participate one day in the dreamed-of victory and exempted us from the general and terrible sacrifices of the war.’99 Nor can one dismiss the idea that it constituted a first tentative step (there was no formal declaration of war against the Soviet Union) towards a larger intervention in the conflict at an opportune moment.
The moral belligerency reflected by the Blue Division was completed in a resounding speech given by Franco before the National Council of the Falange on 17 July 1941. Carried away by his emotions, the Caudillo abandoned his proverbial caution and showed himself more favourable towards the Axis and more scornful of the Allies than ever before:
The die is already cast. The first battles were joined and won on our soil. […] The war has taken a bad turn for the Allies and they have lost it. […] At this moment, when the German armies lead the battle for which Europe and Christianity have for so many years longed, and in which the blood of our youth goes to join that of our comrades of the Axis as a warm expression of our solidarity, let us renew our faith in the destinies of our country under the watchful protection of our closely united army and the Falange.100
However, as on previous occasions, public alignment with the Axis did not mean a complete rupture with the Allies. To face up to British protests about the Blue Division, Franco elaborated a ‘theory of the two wars’ which would excuse his policy of ‘moral belligerency’. According to this theory, Spain, continuing the crusade started in the Civil War, was belligerent in the fight against communism in the east. Yet it continued to be non-belligerent in the conflict between the Axis and Britain in Western Europe. From then on, and almost until the end of the war, in spite of Anglo-American reservations, Francoist diplomacy would follow the principle that ‘the struggle against the Bolsheviks was something quite distinct from the battle being fought in the west between civilized nations.’101 The instrumental character of this theory is made clear in a report by the newly appointed secretary of the presidency, later Admiral Carrero Blanco, who would become the most influential adviser to the Caudillo. On 12 December 1941 he wrote to Franco: ‘The Anglo-Saxon Soviet front […] is really the front of Jewish power where the whole complex of democracies, Freemasonry, liberalism, plutocracy and communism raise their flags […] the Axis is fighting today against everything that is fundamentally Anti-Spain.’102
The entry of the United States in the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, together with serious Italian defeats in Libya and the difficulties of the German offensive in Russia, gradually eroded Franco’s belief in a final Axis victory. From then on, the Caudillo, and his advisers, understood that the war was going to be very long and that the strategic position of Spain had become more vulnerable due to American military presence in the Atlantic, the continuing presence of the British in Suez and the forced withholding of German troops on the Eastern Front. In these circumstances, to insure himself against possible hostile Allied action, Franco resorted to the trump card he had been holding: his close relation with the dictatorial regime of Salazar in Portugal, the traditional British ally in the peninsula who had supported him in the Civil War. On Spanish initiative, on 12 February 1942 a meeting between Franco and Salazar took place in Seville. In the course of this meeting the former agreements were ratified with a view to safeguarding the peace and territorial inviolability of the peninsula. Hence the Iberian Bloc took shape, conceived by Franco as a tacit offer of neutrality towards the Allies and as a guarantee of Anglo-American respect towards the Spanish regime.103
On 8 November 1942 Franco had to face up to a decisive event: Allied troops landed in the French Zone in Morocco and Algeria and thereby opened a successful second front against the Axis in the Mediterranean. The presence of Allied troops on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar and along the Spanish Moroccan border was sufficient to put an end to Franco’s interventionist airs. Apart from the inability of Spain to react militarily, the US ambassador, Carlton J. Hayes, handed over a personal letter from Roosevelt to Franco in which the former assured that ‘these moves are in no shape, manner or form directed against the Government or people of Spain. […] Spain has nothing to fear from the United Nations.’104 As news arrived of the Allied victories in North Africa, Spanish diplomacy started to regain a neutralist stance thanks to the previous dismissal of Serrano Suñer (whose conflicts with the military commanders had reached a turning point in August). Progressively, public identification with the Axis and abuse of the democracies gave way to a generic anti-communist denunciation and the alignment of Spain with the Vatican’s position. As the new foreign minister, General Gómez-Jordana, recalled at the end of November 1942: ‘It is not exactly that we are in favour of the Axis but rather against communism.’105 In April 1943, a little before the Allied invasion of Sicily caused the fall of Mussolini, the Caudillo reiterated to the Italian ambassador the cause of his inactivity: ‘My heart is with you and I want an Axis victory. It is in my interest and in that of my country, but you cannot forget the difficulties that I have to face both internationally and in domestic politics.’106
The invasion of Sicily and the fall of Mussolini in July 1943 hastened Spain’s return to neutrality. Conscious of their powerful position, the Allies (particularly the United States) began to put pressure on Madrid to cease all forms of covert aid to Germany. At the end of September, Franco announced the disbanding of the Blue Division. On 1 October 1943, Franco restated the ‘strict neutrality’ of Spain in the war. Seven days later he had to accept without protest the Portuguese decision to allow the Allies to use military bases in the Azores. Anglo-American pressure intensified at the beginning of 1944. On 28 January, the United States imposed an embargo on fuel until Franco’s regime met the Allied demands. Shortly afterwards, the same measure was applied to the export of wool, causing a crisis in the textile industry. Confronted with the prospect of a total economic collapse, Franco gave way because ‘Spain was in no condition to be intransigent.’ By virtue of the agreement signed on 2 May 1944, the Spanish government promised to expel from its territory all German agents reported for espionage or sabotage, to prevent all logistic support to German military forces in ports and airfields, and to suspend virtually all tungsten exports to Germany.107
In short, at the close of the war, Franco bent to Anglo-American demands, determined to survive the collapse of the Axis. And to this end he called on the anti-communism and Catholicism of his regime and began a propaganda operation designed to portray himself as the ‘sentry of the West’ and ‘the man who with skilful prudence had stood up to Hitler and preserved Spanish neutrality’. Simultaneously, the press began demonizing Serrano Suñer, attributing to him sole responsibility for Spanish identification with the Axis during his ministerial term. By then, Western diplomatic analysts had realized Franco’s desire for political survival at any price. In mid-December 1944, after an interview with Franco in the El Pardo Palace to convey Allied protests at his past conduct, the British ambassador in Madrid informed the British government of the degree of self-confidence and self-assurance exuded by the Caudillo:
Franco seemed entirely complacent and unruffled. He has made no counter-attack and showed no resentment at my criticism. […] He showed no signs of being worried about the future of Spain and had evidently convinced himself that the present régime is in the forefront of human progress and the best that Spain has ever possessed. Whether this appearance of complete complacency is a pose or not, it is impossible to say. My own view is that he is genuinely convinced that he is the chosen instrument of Heaven to save Spain, and any suggestions to the contrary he regards as either ignorant or blasphemous. […] It was only when I was leaving that I noticed a sign that the wind had begun to blow in this unventilated shrine of self-complacency. Photographs of the Pope and President Carmona [of Portugal] had taken the place of honour previously held on his writing table by Hitler and Mussolini.108
Resistance and Survival in the Postwar World
The end of the war, with the total victory of the Allied coalition, marked the beginning of a period of ostracization of the Franco regime. This critical juncture allowed the Caudillo to again show his political skills to resist and survive in a difficult situation, both domestically and abroad.109 On 19 March 1945, Don Juan de Borbón, son and heir of the late Alfonso XIII, published his Manifiesto de Lausana requesting that Franco retire in favour of a monarchy open to national reconciliation and democratic transition. Shortly thereafter, on 2 August, the conference of the victorious Allies at Potsdam issued a statement vetoing the entry of Franco’s Spain into the United Nations (UN) ‘in view of its origins, its nature, its record and its close association with the aggressor States’.110
Beset by both international condemnation and internal pressure in favour of the restoration of the monarch, Franco fought his last great battle for survival by rekindling the hatred and memories of the Civil War and the spectre of a Masonic–Bolshevik plot against Catholic Spain (it was no longer appropriate to make anti-Semitic references in view of the Holocaust). Franco was convinced that very soon there would be a confrontation in Europe because of the antagonism between the So
viet Union and the United States and that the latter would turn to Spain for its invaluable strategic importance and its anti-communist policy. Until this rupture occurred, there was no option but to follow the confidential recommendations of his political alter ego since the ousting of Serrano Suñer, Admiral Carrero Blanco. In mid-April 1945, the faithful secretary reminded the Caudillo that it was essential to ‘preach among the Spanish the holy war of anti-communist and anti-liberal intransigence’ and ‘take advantage’ of the three ‘weapons’ of the regime to convince ‘England and the United States’ that ‘we need to jointly fight against Russian imperialism’: ‘our Catholicism, our anti-communism and our geographical position’.111 Three months later, evaluating the Potsdam Conference, Carrero Blanco underlined the tensions between the West and the Soviet Union and sought to define what would be Franco’s attitude in the future:
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